Beautiful Boy Heads to Toronto

Beautiful Boy, the film about a teen who kills himself after going on a shooting rampage at his college will be among those competing at the TIFF September 9 through 19.  The film stars Maria Bello and Michael Sheen, and is directed by Shawn Ku.

A Movieline interview with Kyle Gallner about the film:

You’re also in a movie coming up called Beautiful Boy, where you’re the catalyst for a school shooting. Maria Bello told me about it and it sounded rough.
It’s an interesting movie. There’s been takes on Columbine and school shooters, and it’s always very sad and a difficult situation, but this is a movie where you see it through the eyes of the parents [of the killer]. The kid isn’t the main focal point; as you said, the kid is just the catalyst. People forget at the end of the day that these parents lost a child as well. They’re still going through a mourning process, and they have to deal with all the parents who blame them: “Why did you raise such a monster? You must be terrible people.” Really, it might not have been their fault at all — their kid could have been a loose cannon who never spoke to his parents.

How do you deal with the people who might not want to see that sort of story dramatized?
It is a difficult situation, but that’s the point of film: to push boundaries and tell things that have never been told and try to see things through different people’s eyes. I’ve played a handful of evil or bad people, but for the most part, these kids kind of see what they’re doing as right. It makes sense to them, even if the rest of the world doesn’t understand. Everyone does something for a reason and these are terrible things, but it’s not like [Beautiful Boy] is making this kid out to be a hero.

Pics originally posted at Maria-bello.org.

Two more after the cut.